


Accidental Hero

by Tarlan



Category: Eureka (TV)
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 13:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8403973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: Another Fargo experiment, and this time Jack becomes the hero just by being in the right place at the right time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> With the deadline only days away, another quick story to fill a prompt on **Trope Bingo** Round 7: accidental hero

In Jack's eyes, being in the right place at the right time wasn't the same as being a hero, especially as it was his job to protect and serve the citizens of Eureka, so he was confused when he entered Cafe Diem and gained a hero's welcome. He had done any number of truly heroic acts to save the town, including jumping through a wormhole to stop yet another time disaster, but no one had ever given him a standing ovation for risking his life on all those occasions.

Even though Henry had tried to be more reasonable with Jack's demands for better safety protocols - Jack guessed having to officiate at funerals had made Henry a lot more aware of the human cost of making stupid mistakes - the ' _disasters_ ' hadn't stopped once Grant bought up the town. Jack often ended up at the center of the action, causing a rift between him and Allison that ended their marriage not long after the birth of Jack Junior, but on this occasion, all Jack had done was hold onto one end of a piece of string as Fargo demonstrated his latest invention, or theory, or whatever it was that Fargo did when he wasn't updating his Buffy website.

Two hours earlier:

The string seemed to disappear into a ripply-wavy thing that materialized between him and the hook on the far wall where the other end of the string was tethered. He half-listened as Fargo explained what was happening in words with too many syllables for Jack to really understand, though certain words stood out worryingly: quantum annihilation, and photons.

All of a sudden there was a strong tug that almost pulled Jack off his feet and into the ripply-wavy thing. Valiantly he held on because he so did not want to go through another one of those potentially dangerous wormholes despite Fargo's assurance that it wasn't a wormhole, or a doorway to another dimension, or a ripple in the space-time continuum.

"Um. That shouldn't have happened," Fargo stated ominously, and Jack wanted to head slap himself for being stupid enough to be within five miles of any Fargo experiment.

"Not reassuring," he gritted back as the string tugged again, his feet sliding across the laboratory floor several feet before he regained traction by leaning all his weight back.

He noticed no one was coming to his aid, and now he was close enough to feel the edge of the ripply-wavy air against his hands. Just as he decided to let go and be damned, the string slackened and something hard hit him even as he fell backwards, knocking all the air out of him as he was flattened to the floor by the weight of...

"Nathan!" Allison cried out.

Jack opened his eyes to find Nathan Stark's desperate green-blue eyes only inches from his own, and he would have screamed or yelled in shock if he could have caught his breath. Instead hands reached for Nathan, drawing him aside and fussing over him in tones of wonderment and joy while Jack was basically forgotten, curled up until he could drag in a decent lungful of air. A medical team arrived and carried Nathan off with everyone hard on his heels while Jack was abandoned. He crawled to the nearest bench and used it to help him stagger to his feet, wondering what the hell had just happened.

Word spread fast at Global so by the time he reached the medical center the crowd of people waiting outside was at least six deep, but rather than push through, Jack turned around and headed back to his jeep. If that really was Nathan Stark then he had a lot of paperwork to handle, including a ' _back-from-the-dead_ ' 924/B in triplicate to send to Henry for his authorization, though at least he was spared the additional forms required by the D.O.D. now Grant owned the town.

It took him a couple of hours to complete the paperwork, mostly because he had to get hold of Fargo, needing him to translate his technobabble into words Jack could understand, but eventually he hit the send key. By now it was almost six in the evening and Jack felt a strange reluctance to go home, heading for Cafe Diem instead, and this brought him full circle to the undeserved hero's welcome. All he could do was smile tightly, trying to cover his confusion and discomfort as he was slapped on the back and congratulated for rescuing Doctor Stark when all he had done on this occasion was hold on tight to a piece of string.

Two days later he looked up as the main office door opened, eyebrows rising when Nathan walked into the Sheriff's Office alone.

"Carter, I hear I have you to thank for pulling me through that portal."

His voice sounded almost bored, as if he was trying not to make it into a big deal - which it so wasn't - but his eyes held a different emotion, one that was all too familiar to Jack but unusual for Nathan: gratitude. Except there was something more in his eyes that Jack couldn't figure out, and it made Jack feel uncomfortable so he stepped back into familiar territory when he replied.

"If I'd known it was you I'd have let go of the string sooner." 

He expected Nathan to say something equally sarcastic in return.

"No, you wouldn't," Nathan replied quietly, rounding the desk and forcing Jack to stand.

Jack hated that he was right.

"My hero," Nathan stated blandly as he moved in closer, but his lips twitched to remove any sting of sarcasm.

Though why Jack found himself focusing on Nathan's lips was just as confusing as everything else that had happened over the past two days... right until those soft lips pressed against his. It was like the floodgates opening in his mind, making sense of every moment since they first met: the sarcasm, the rivalry, even Nathan's insistence on being the one to restart the photon on that fateful day. Nathan's arms wrapped around him, pulling him closer, and this time Jack was determined to hang on tight and never let go.

END  
 


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